Social Software - An Enterprise Perspective - Part 3: SWOT Analysis of Micro-Blogs

Today we are continuing our series on Social Software- An Enterprise Perspective with part 3, the SWOT Analysis of Micro-Blogs.

History & Definition

Noah Glass and Jack Dorsey from Odeo Inc. first began to experiment with the idea of an micro-blogging application in March 2006. In 2007 at the SXSW interactive festival twitter was first located at flat panel displays. This can be defined as the birth of twitter. Here and here you can find two impressions from the early days of twitter.

Microblogging is also known as micro-messaging or micro-sharing within a network. In this network colleagues share information with short messages (140-characters). This messages can be used as sort of a status update and can be shared, viewed and even posted mobile.

Social Software - An Enterprise Perspective - Part 2: SWOT Analysis of Blogs

In “Social Software - An Enterprise Perspective - Part 1: SWOT Analysis of Wikis” we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of wikis. Now we will go on with part 2, the SWOT analysis of weblogs.

History & Definition

The term “weblog” was introduced by Jorn Barger in 1997. In 1999 Peter Merholz created the term “blog” by breaking the original word weblog. The origins of blogs can be seen in early tools like early e-mail-lists and internet-forum-software. In the early beginnings, people used their blogs more or less like a diary. Today though, blogs are a popular tool for different types of corporate communication strategies.

The main characteristics of weblogs are, that content is frequently updated and that it’s intended for general public consumption. Blogs are easy-to-publish and are written in an informal, conversational style, while content is listed in chronological order with recent posts on top.

General Types of Blogs

• Personal Blogs: include topics like music, family, travel, health or politics etc. The blogger is blogging about topics and interests of his private life.

• Educational Blogs: Blogs with an educational approach.

Types of Blogs within Organizations

• Individual Blogs: these blogs are mostly used for personal knowledge management.

• Group Blogs: these blogs are used for networking by experts with the aim of collective knowledge generation and management.

• Corporate Blogs: these blogs can be classified in internal and external blogs.

• Internal Corporate Blogs: these blogs are used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a company.Also used for projects, knowledge and organization management.

• External Corporate Blogs: are most used for marketing, branding or PR purposes. The aim is to build a relationship with customers.

Additional forms of blogs are CEO Blogs. They are written from a member of the top-management or the CEO himself. They tend to have a strict business reference and are often used as a personalized representation of the company.

Operational Areas

Today many companies use blogs within their marketing strategy to communicate directly with their customers leaving out the typical marketing speech. This way blogs can be used as a base for a company’s social media strategy. 

As weblogs are dialog- and community oriented personal publication instruments, they can be seen as a tool for identity, relation and information management. Parts of the identity are details of the author, the bloggers topic, and personal spelling style and publication rhythm. Relations are provided through the possibility of networking tools like comment functions, blogrolls and trackbacks. Information is generated by the content, links, documents, storage and classification. All together, these are components for an active and efficient information management.

But again, what are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of corporate based blogs?

SWOT Analysis

The following SWOT analysis shows the most improtant facts of blogs in a corporate environment

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Further Readings

• What is a Blog ?
• Blogs in Plain English
• 8 Principles for the Modern Blog
• Weblogs, Podcasts & Co.
• Complete Guide to Live Blogging
• Thema Blog – Teil II: Glossar: so verstehen Sie die Blogger-Sprache
• Blogging for Business - An introduction to playing in the Blogosphere
• Critical analysis of blogging in public relations
• Daimler Corporate Blogging
• Klein - Weblogs im unternehmerischen Umfeld (DA)

References

• Blog- Wikipedia
• Reinmann - Werkzeugkiste Blogging
• Blogging Business - Chris Garrett
• Anindito - Does Blog suit you
• Why Blogs and Social Media are Effective Marketing Tools 
• Dingra - Introduction to Corporate Blogging

Umbenennung des Blog Titels im Zuge der Erweiterung des Autorenteams

Es ist jetzt knapp eineinhalb Jahre her, dass ich diesen Blog im Rahmen meiner Diplomarbeit an der Universität Stuttgart begonnen habe mit Inhalten zu füllen. Seit damals ist für die Verhältnisse der modernen Medien viel Zeit vergangen und das Thema Social Media und Enterprise 2.0 hat weiter an Dynamik gewonnen. Immer mehr Unternehmen entdecken die Wichtigkeit von Social Media Applikationen in der Kundenkommunikation und Enterprise 2.0 Anwendungen. Auch bei Tobias Brenner wuchs durch persönliche Gespräche mit mir das Interesse an diesem Thema mehr und mehr, so dass er sich Anfang des Jahres dazu entschloss selbst einen Blog zum Thema Tourismus 2.0 zu eröffnen. Davon motiviert und inspiriert haben wir nun beschlossen, diesen Blog in Zukunft zusammen zu führen.

Im Zuge der Erweiterung des Autorenteams, haben wir uns zudem entschlossen den Titel unseres jetzt nun gemeinsamen Blogs von “Einführungsstrategien von Enterprise 2.0” in “Enterprise 2.0 & Social Media Strategies” umzubenennen. Dies hat zum einen den Grund, dass wir uns darauf geeinigt haben, den Blog künftig auch verstärkt in englischer Sprache mit Inhalten zu füllen und zum anderen weil Tobias Brenner seine Kompetenzen verstärkt aus dem Bereich Social Media einbringen wird.

Vorstellung des Co-Autors:

Im Rahmen dieser Entscheidung möchte ich mich nun vorstellen. Mein Name ist Tobias Brenner, ich bin im wunderschönen Bad-Cannstatt zu Stuttgart geboren und habe einen erheblichen Teil meines Lebens in Freiberg am Neckar verbracht. Im Oktober 2009 habe ich an der University of Northumbria mein Studium in International Business Management mit Vertiefung in Tourismusmanagement zum Bachelor of Arts with Honours abgeschlossen. Ich habe vielfältige Interessen und bin vor allem auch technikbegeistert, so faszinieren mich die Möglichkeiten die sich durch das Internet und die Verknüpfung von Technologien wie Twitter, Weblogs und Wikis ergeben und sehe darin großartige Möglichkeiten für Unternehmen. Organisationsmanagement, Wissensmanagement, Personalmanagement können von diesen Entwicklungen profitieren, die Frage ist nur das Wie! Mich damit zu beschäftigen und hier Erkenntnisse zu sammeln, das soll mein Ziel für die Mitarbeit an diesem Blog sein.

Overview on 30+ active Enterprise 2.0 Blogs

The best way of course to search for up-to-date Enterprise 2.0-News is to throw on the Google search engine. Another additional way is to use the Google Blog Search function as it specifically allows you to search through current Enterprise 2.0 news on the most common blogs available on this topic.
Topic Blogs (e.g. Enterprise 2.0 Blogs) have risen to an excellent way of getting a quick overview as well as a deeper understanding of a topic you have not known much about before. So for people who are new to the topic of Enterprise 2.0, for those who ar trying to get a deeper insight, and for those experts around searching for additional information there is a list below of the 30+ most common current Blogs related to Enterprise 2.0. Besides, many of these Blogs were used during the writing of my diploma thesis and in addition for the Enterprise 2.0 study 2010 by centrestage.

International Blogs:

• Andrew McAfee's Blog - The Business Impact of IT by Andrew McAfee 
• Enterprise Web 2.0 - Enterprise Web 2.0 by Dion Hinchcliffe
• Gil Yehuda's Enterprise 2.0 Blog - Your path to success by Gil Yehuda
• Enterprise 2Open -  Bonding the Enterprise 2.0 Community by various authors
• Enterprise 2.0 Blog/ - Enterprise 2.0 Blog by various authors
• The Social Enterprise - Enterprise 2.0: Web 2.0 inside the Enterprise by Emanuele Quintarelli
• Collaboration 2.0  - by Oliver Marks
• Projectmanagement 2.0 Analysis of how Enterprise 2.0 technologies influence project management by Andrew Filev 
• elsua.net - A Knowledge Management Blog Thinking Outside the Inbox by Luis Suarez 
• Column 2 - BPM, ENterprise 2.0 and technology trends in business by various authors

German Blogs:

• Centrestage Blog - Learning enabled business transformation by Joachim Niemeier and Martina Göhring
•  7 Days and More - Notes on Emerging Technologies and Applications for Newmedia, innovative Enterprises and Business Excellence by Joachim Niemeier 
• Einführungsstrategien von Enterprise 2.0 -  Strategien & Trends rund um die Themen Enterprise 2.0 & Social Media by Milos Vujnovic 
• frogpond - Enterprise Collaboration Consulting by Martin Koser 
• Business 2.0 - Center for Innovations in Business Processes by Andrea Back 
• Human Network Competence - Communardo human network competence by various authors 
• Besser 2.0 – Projektmanagement 2.0 – Das Web im Unternehmen. Gemeinsam einfach besser by various authors 
• Rules of the Game -  Enterprise 2.0 by Frank Schönefeld
• bwl zwei null – Blog on the Post Everything Economoy by Matthias Schwenk  
• Change 2.0 – Neue Medien im Change-Management by University of Stuttgart 
• Recht 2.0 - Web 2.0, Social Media & Recht by Carsten Ulbricht 
• Personalmarketing2null - Infos & Trends aus der Welt des online-personalmarketings 
• Enterprise-2.0-Blog - Denkanstöße zu Web 2.0 by Deloitte 
• Mutimedia Blog - Informationen zu Multimedia und Gruppenblog der Studenten von der RFH Köln by Bernd Schmitz 
• Kom-Blog – Blog für Kommunikation by Joachim Lindner 
• doubleyuu – Unternehmensberatung Enterprise 2.0 by Willms Buhse 
• Social Media - Injelea Blog Social Media by various authors 
• Kooperationssysteme - Blog zum Buch Enterprise 2.0 – Planung, Einführung und erfolgreicher Einsatz von Social Software in Unternehmen” by Alexander Richter and Michael Koch 
• Communixx – Forschung und Entwicklung rund um den Einsatz von Social Software, CSCW und Community-Unterstützung by various authors
•  Knowledge Garden - Der Blog Rund ums Lernen und Wissensmanagement by Dieter Josten

Austrian Blogs:

• Enterprise2punkt0 - deutschsprachiger Blog zum Thema Enterprise 2.0 by various authors 
• Enterprise 2.0 Initiative - Neue Wettbewerbsvorteile für Österreichs Wirtschaft by R. WIlfinger

Additional Link Lists:

• Blogs about Enterprise 2.0 - by Henning Schürig
• More Blogs about Enterprise 2.0 by Klaus-M. Schremser


When I find time I will try and bring structure into the list, maybe with additional information on user rates and categories. Please feel free to comment on additional Enterprise 2.0 Blogs you know of so we can enhance the list together